Saw this crazy thing called "Cool Runnings" today. It was about an Olympic bobsled team. From Jamaica.

It was pretty good, though it was produced by Disney meaning that it was really predictable in how the plot flowed. For example, if you couldn't guess it already and you haven't already seen it, I'll give away the ending:

Spoiler Alert:

Spoiler Alert:

Spoiler Alert:

Spoiler Alert:

They didn't win, and people clapped anyway, including the other bobsled teams.

Not much of a spoiler, right?

But, it had its moments. Namely, a juvenile joke that actually made me laugh every twenty minute or so. I'd sure recommend it, if you have a half hour and don't want anything too serious.

I'd have to say Kung Fu Panda 2. It's a great example of a movie you should walk into with an open mind, except what you're given from the first one. I found it quite good, we a few unpredictable moments thrown in.

Spoiler Alert:

However, the ending is given away literally within the first five minutes of the film, which might be mocking spoilers in general.

Saw the old "Bad News Bears" a few days ago. It was . . . uh . . . pretty bad. Most of the main characters didn't have any redeeming qualities, the acting was kind of bad even for 1976, and, uh, most of the main characters didn't have any redeeming qualities. It's a baseball movie, and the team somehow ended up in the playoffs, but even then when you saw them it wasn't clear how they got there. Half the players had like three minutes of screen time.

Also, most of their opponents didn't even have any redeeming qualities. You want the Bears to win because the other teams are coming around and stuffing the kids in garbage cans, but then you really can't because most of the Bears were just as bad. Good Lord, would it really have stung that badly to put in anyone who wasn't a complete jerk?

Dang, you guys all stop watching movies or something? Saw War of the Worlds tonight . . .

tl;dr didn't like it

preface: i've never read the original book but have been told the most recent movie is fairly true to it.

I've been looking for a decent action/science fiction/alien/rawr movie for a while, and considering how old the story of War of the Worlds is and how many people seemed to like it I was hoping this one was
going to be at least a little okay.

Er, too lazy to do a real write-up of it so I'll just make a list this time.

Good:
- THEY DIDN'T PUT CRAPPY ROMANCE IN IT
- Wittiest ten-year-old girl ever.
- Effects and explosions and everything were excellent. Maybe it's not The Avengers, but hey, this thing came out almost a decade ago now. Also I have low standards.
- THEY DIDN'T PUT CRAPPY ROMANCE IN IT
- Nice commentary on human behavior during crisis.
- Attempted humor was actually okay, most of the time. At least in the beginning, they seemed to give it up halfway through.
- THEY DIDN'T PUT CRAPPY ROMANCE IN IT

Neutral:
- Was about as post-9/11 as you can get without actually being a movie about 9/11. Right down to the "OMG TERRORISTS." Nice.

Bad:
- They played the angst-y teenager card . . . which has already been played to death by like every other PG-13 movie ever made . . . and they didn't do it well, for the most part it was just like "i don't like you because i'm determined to not like you . . ." . . . and it had a crappy resolution.
- Things were very plot convenient. Veeeeery plot convenient. Seriously guys, there are only so many times you can be the last man standing before you have to say "can you just die already." Also, I still don't get how Ray ended up with the only working car in the tri-state area. Last I checked, EMPs don't pick and choose what they toast.
- Ray wasn't very likable. Minimal skills, did a lot of stupid things, was kind of mean to Rob and Rachel and some of the other people . . . and somehow knew enough to survive alien invasion. Again, very plot convenient.
- I can put up with dumb tropes, I can put up with predictable timing, but the ending . . . sucked. It just ended itself. It's like Wells just sat down and said "you know, I don't feel like writing anymore, let's just have the aliens die." They died because they didn't like Earth's microorganisms. But they've been monitoring the planet for millions of years and even have vastly superior intelligence compared to us and, in fact, have been here before to plant their machines . . . and they still didn't have this problem until now. That's like a Pokémon X and Y-caliber plot hole. Meanwhile things that could have been played on, like feeding the tripods a grenade, were completely forgotten.

Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Killer Mutant Snowman...It was awful 2/5 felt longer than an hour and a half, the death scenes are kinda funny and I liked the special effects as using puppets for the killer snowballs, but it just dragged on and some of the characters got annoying

It would appear that I remain the only person on the planet who thought Inside Out was boring and silly.

Anyway, saw A Walk in the Woods a week ago. For those who haven't, it's about two guys who decided to walk the Appalachian Trail and all of the weird stuff that happens to them. It's also one of the few things that have succeeded at making me laugh at toilet humor.

Was based on a book, which you all should definitely go read right now because there are some things that are just described better in text.

Went and saw Love Live! The School Idol Movie at the Cinemas, one of the perks of being in Australia. Never seen the anime but I can never pass up an opportunity to watch anime on the big screen, it was decent... Was quite confused for awhile because as I said I hadn't actually seen the anime but was still enjoyable and can tell why it was a hit in Japan but it's something I won't be rewatching.

It was . . . interesting. Still making up my mind on it and I might edit this post later if I ever do, but:

Good
- DINOSAURS
- Very colorful
- DINOSAURS
- Specifically, they did a decent job of making the dinosaurs feel alive, instead of a bunch of scaly ostriches and giraffes in a normal zoo.
- Also a good number of them ended up doing stuff in the climax besides of just standing around getting eaten (which they did anyway), although the bit with the ichthyosaur thing at the very end was kind of over before it started. (The only ones I don't recall seeing at some point were the coelophysis, and they have the excuse of probably getting flattened through the pavement before the camera even figured out where they were.)
- It acknowledged the existence of classic Jurassic Park. Liberally. Probably the one thing I was genuinely surprised at in the entire movie. Apparently people don't like it when you break the fourth wall like that but I don't see a problem with a movie taking place in the same world as . . . its own source material.
- The owner guy managed to pull off being a good guy and a bad guy at the same time, kind of, which is something I haven't seen in a long time

Meh
- Didn't deviate from original Jurassic Park as much as I hoped it would.
- I wish I could develop something as complex as indominacthulhu and have it work on the first try!
- Did not get to see the pteranodons before they turned themselves into ballistic missiles >:(
- Did not get to see more of the coelophysis before they presumably got turned into pancakes >:(
- Did not get to . . . never mind

Bad
- I tend to complain about this a lot in movies and admittedly it's kind of hard to do without making it look like you're ripping off some other movie, but come on, the owner guy was one of the only people who wasn't a carbon copy of one of the "surly teenager," "nerdy little brother," "FOR SCIENCE," "manly man guy," whatever, archetypes. Really, the velociraptors had more personality than the protagonists, it only took like five or ten minutes after introducing a character to know how the entire movie was going to go. Until:
- A lot of people got complete personality overhauls like halfway through the movie. A person doesn't go from being the bane of their little brother's existence to being their hero in the span of about a half hour, I could go on for pretty much everyone who had a name but I want to finish writing this by the time the sun comes up.
- Likewise, there were a lot of scenes that were either completely pointless or completely redundant. Cutting away from the action to quietly watch a brachiosaurus die for a minute and then cutting back to the action is like interrupting a Mozart concert to play a few verses of rock 'n' roll. Yes, we already understand Indiana Jones Guy's characterization by this point, thanks, film. Also I'm pretty sure the entire studio completely forgot about the divorce thing about ten minutes after shooting it.
- For a movie that mocked product placement in multiple places . . . THERE WAS AN AWFUL LOT OF PRODUCT PLACEMENT. AAH.
- There weren't a whole lot of not mind-bogglingly stupid decisions made by anyone. "Gate that says Do Not Enter on it? Let's enter!" I guess that was kind of the point of the entire thing, but it's way easier to watch a film if there's a character you can root for who isn't an ancestor of the chicken or a reskinned Indiana Jones.
- Indominacthulhu kills almost every living thing on the island and then immediately get eaten by an otherwise peaceful ichthyosaur. How does that even work?
- "In order for the plot to be resolved the main character has to learn something," and I guess that did kind of happen (without being forced) if you count indominacthulhu learning how to be self-aware and then magically forgetting she's supposed to be cthulhu.

seriously?
- DEAR HOLLYWOOD, IF WATCHING YOUR ROMANCE SCENES FEEL LIKE A HAVING STEEL PYLON BEING DRIVEN THROUGH YOUR EYEBALLS IT MIGHT NOT BE A BAD IDEA TO RELEGATE THEM TO THE DELETED SCENES, OR TO JUST BURN THE SCRIPT, SERIOUSLY, YOU'RE MAKING ME START TO ACTUALLY LIKE "CINDERELLA."

Ashens and the Quest for the Game Child. Some parts about The Power of Friendship are cheesy as hell but I watched it because I regularly watch Ashens' videos. Overall, I'm not disappointed.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS2Cnx_eL6s

Zootopia. I was expecting Disney's newest entry to pander to the furry crowd, but it's much more than that and has great writing. I highly recommend going to see it, especially when you go with buddies who have a good sense of humor.

Zootopia. I was expecting Disney's newest entry to pander to the furry crowd, but it's much more than that and has great writing. I highly recommend going to see it, especially when you go with buddies who have a good sense of humor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cat333Pokémon

Watership Down, on CED. It's quite a strange movie about the plight of rabbits when humans are developing the land around them. There's a lot of violence and blood for an animated movie, too.

Sounds like the first talking animal movie made you want to see the other. Also if you want to see an X-rated version of Zootopia check out Fritz the Cat.

Sounds like the first talking animal movie made you want to see the other. Also if you want to see an X-rated version of Zootopia check out Fritz the Cat.

Well, my grandparents invited me to see Zootopia again today, and when I went to clean some stuff out of the shed I found the CEDs in there and remembered I hadn't seen that movie yet. I also just watched The Last Unicorn, also on CED, which is even weirder than Watership Down.

I've heard of Fritz the Cat being an intentional play on the trope that all animation is for kids (oh look, there it is; heh, both of the two movies I just watched are on there too).

Neighbors 2- Some parts could've been done better, but I still enjoyed it. Others think the first one was better.

Warcraft- I don't play World of Warcraft, so I didn't understand half of the backstory. If you want to fully enjoy this movie, read up on the lore. (I ended up giving away the free trial code thingy for the game, so don't ask me for it)

The Conjuring 2- Possibly my favorite out of all of the movies I've seen here. Never a dull moment when anything can pop out and scare you half to death.

Spent the weekend with some cousins, and we did a bunch of movie things.

- 2001: Space Odyssey: apparently it's quite famous, though I hadn't even heard of it until Saturday. To those who still haven't seen it, it's one of those plots that you can't tell if is really brilliant because it's open-ended or if the writers were the laziest people in the world. To those who have seen it . . . why is there a giant PS2 buried on the moon? :^)

- My Fair Lady: Actually I was asleep through most of this one, but the beginning and ending were pretty good. Also I'm sure it would cause all kinds of upset-ness on the Internet if it came out today :^)

- Full Metal Jacket: I only actually saw a few minutes one while Grandma wasn't in the room, but . . . well, let's say I'm now sure the flame wars in YouTube comment sections could be trying a little harder :^)

Broke down and bought the DVD version of Zootopia, because what the heck. It's actually very good, and I consider it to be the best DVD I've bought in years, although there were a few intense chase scenes that I probably wouldn't want to show my nieces (because they might have nightmares about said scenes). If they were over 5 years old, maybe I'd think differently.